Two Halves Make a Whole
by AberrantScript
Summary: Leni helps her brother try an experiment to show that boys can be more than just what they are expected to be.


Disclaimer: _The Loud House_ Copyright Nickelodeon (2018)

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TWO HALVES MAKE A WHOLE

"Thank you for letting me do this, Leni," said Lincoln with a timid voice.

"It's no problem at all," replied his sister as she pulled out a little orange flower pin and placed it in his short snowy hair. "There! Now, we can start~"

The boy smiled as he stood before her in just his boxers; like a blank canvas before an artist.

She went over to her desk and picked up a blue skirt she'd made just for the occasion, a white blouse, and a training bra.

Lincoln felt himself begin blushing as Leni handed him the bra.

"Do you know how to put it on?" she asked with a soft look in her eyes and a gentle voice.

"Yeah," he replied. He'd seen enough in his lifetime to get the idea of how they worked.

He felt awkward and uncomfortable as he put it on, but Leni was there to help him if he needed it. And that special attention made him feel wonderful; that careful guidance on her part made him feel safe.

When it was on, he looked at his sister with a shy blush on his cheeks.

"Did I do it right?"

Leni hummed as she walked around him. "Yup, and it looks like it fits you well."

Next he was handed the skirt, and he stepped into it and pulled it up to his waist. It… felt awkward as well, but he liked how roomy it was. Almost like… like being free… like being released from a cage that trapped him from his true self.

He twisted from side to side to test how well it'd hold to his waist, and he was happy with it.

Leni hummed as she lifted the blouse into his arms. She sat back and watched as he lifted it over his head and slipped it down his thin chest. She smiled when she saw him go to tuck it into the skirt because that style would work perfect for another surprise she'd made for him.

Now fully clothed and feeling an indescribable mixture of self-consciousness and self-awareness, Lincoln turned toward the vanity mirror, stepped up toward the furniture, and gazed upon his appearance.

A figure was staring back at him… with bare feet, a long skirt, and a simple blouse. In her parted and brushed white hair was an orange clip, and he watched as her hand reached up to touch it. He gasped when he realized… when he connected that mirrored hand down his wrist, his arm, to his body…

"You look really pretty, Linka," said her sister in a low voice that made warmth bloom inside her scrawny chest.

Leni stepped up behind the girl in the mirror, and she slipped a pastel orange, blue, and white plaid jacket over her arms.

Lincoln looked down at his hands and saw the rolled up cuffs just inches away from his wrists.

Leni hummed as she went to a drawer and pulled out a compact.

In the mirror, Lincoln could see as that girl's eyes widened… in excitement or terror or both, he couldn't decide… but he knew his own heart was racing, and he could see that girl, Linka, gasp as a small brush applied powder to her cheeks.

He kept still; his eyes never leaving Linka's as that brush left their shared body… and a tube of mascara was lifted into their view.

He tried to watch her… he tried not to cringe as that brush came so close to his eyes… as it blocked his view of the girl in the mirror for brief seconds at a time.

When Leni laid it onto the vanity, Lincoln could already see Linka puckering her lips for what was next. And in a short moment, as still and lifeless as all of eternity, his mind froze and his body ceased as a tiny stick of pink was pressed against his, her, their lips. They instantly smacked their lips together when it was pulled away, just as Leni had shown them to do.

They looked into each other's eyes, seeing the same person staring back at them. One reached their hand out to the reflective surface and shivered when their partner's own hand returned the touch in an identical movement.

Lincoln looked at Linka, and she back at him... and something passed between them; an electric spark surged from his fingertips to hers.

Her eyes turned away from the boy in front of her, and she moved so her body was fully facing Leni.

The older girl was sitting on her bed, content to just watch her younger sister and help her if need be.

"How are you feeling, Linka?" she asked in a calm voice, tranquil as a wave brushing against sand.

The girl's shoulders raised up to her neck and she looked down at the floor. She felt stupid, inadequate, weird…

"I-I… don't know."

Leni hummed as she considered the girl before her.

"Do you remember why you asked me to do this with you?"

It took several moments… but Linka eventually worked up the nerve to nod her head.

"Y-yeah."

Soon, her head tilted upward, even as her balled fists slid into her jacket's pockets and shook with nervous tremors.

"Boys aren't allowed to cry…"

Little beads of tears formed in the corners of her eyes as her body quivered.

"Boys aren't allowed to be weak, to let their sisters help them…"

She did nothing as her older sister's warm hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her arm toward a cushiony chest. Linka's teary eyes looked up to see Leni pressing the younger girl's hand between her own, holding it close to her heart.

"Boys aren't allowed to show their emotions, to get excited about non-boyish things…"

Her feet moved forward at a snail's pace when her older sister tugged on her arm, pulling her body closer toward that chest, toward warmth, _toward safety_.

Linka, with her teary eyes hid in her older sister's dress, tried to speak again… her voice shaking and trembling.

" _B-boys aren't a-allowed to enjoy_ girly _things… they c-can't show their f-feminine side,_ " her voice growing stronger with each following piece, " _They can't enjoy flowers, can't like slow dancing._ " She pulled enough away that she could see her sister's proud eyes looking down at her. "They can't enjoy having a tea party with their younger sister, can't hold the purses of their older sisters. They can't model feminine clothes for their sister…"

She pulled back away from her sister, shivering as Leni's hands fell away from her. She looked down at her own clothes… at her bare feet and smooth legs, at her skirt and the thin waist where her blouse was tucked in.

Her eyes closed and she took a breath to calm her nerves.

When they opened up, she turned them onto Leni.

"But a boy doesn't have to be what is expected of him."

Her small hands clasped against her flat chest, against her heart.

"A boy can show his emotions. He can cry, can mourn. He can feel hurt, can be weak…"

Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she turned toward that mirror once again.

"A boy can have a feminine side… he can enjoy it… and still be a boy."

She saw Leni get up from the bed and walk up to her back. She hummed as two warm arms slipped around her shoulders, hugging her back to the older girl's front.

Leni smiled at the boy in the mirror.

"What do you see in the mirror, Linka?"

Linka looked good and long as well. And no matter how she looked at it… the truth could never be so plain.

"I see a boy."

Leni's smile never dropped as she saw that boy's face… as a grin ever so slowly began to form across wet, flushed cheeks.

"What else do you see?"

That grin covered his whole face, his eyes crinkled in joy.

" _I see a whole person!_ "

Leni hugged the boy tighter to her body.

"You were always a whole person, Lincoln…"

The boy turned in her arms and squeezed his arms around her.

"…and you don't have to divide yourself into two halves, and hide one side of yourself, to make people happy."

Leni's arms squeezed a little tighter as the boy in her arms began crying once again. She'd have to change into a clean dress after this, but she didn't care.

" _I love you, Lincoln, just the way you are._ "


End file.
